Adult Recommendations

When Books Went To War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II, by Molly Guptill Manning

On May 10, 1933, German students (with official encouragement) burned an estimated 25,000 books in a symbolic act meant to “purify” Germany of Jewish influence. The Nazis would continue to burn books throughout their reign, both in their country and in the countries they invaded, in an attempt to stamp out any thought they deemed dangerous to National Socialism, ultimately destroying over 100 million volumes. People around the world reacted in outrage and horror, and in the US, groups of librarians, citizens, politicians, writers, and publishers came together to fight back. Through organized book donation drives and the invention of an entirely new book format—the Armed Services Edition—these fighters in World War II’s “War of Ideas” put 132 million books in the hands of American servicemen and their allies. Their work inspired an entire generation with a love of reading and enshrined books like Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as American classics. When Books Went to War tells their unforgettable story.

Wildalone, by Krassi Zourkova

Thea Slavin is a teenage Bulgarian piano prodigy. Following in her older sister’s footsteps, she wins a scholarship to Princeton University, where she intends to discover the truth about her sister's death—and the disappearance of her body—fifteen years ago. Her musical talent and her sister’s legacy soon draw her into romantic entanglements with two brothers: the enigmatic Jake and the passionate Rhys. But there’s more to both brothers—and to her sister’s death—than Thea first understands, and discovering the truth will challenge her understanding of life, death, and love. Greek mythology supplies the elements of fantasy in this novel of dark romance, making it perfect for fans of Deborah Harkness and Stephanie Meyer.

@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex, by Shane Harris

America is at war—and so is Google, your bank, and America’s utility companies. At stake are financial data, military secrets, and innocent lives. Welcome to the strange and terrifying world of zero days, white hats, and hackbacks, where the NSA, internet security companies, major corporations, and foreign governments race to defend against swarms of botnets and ever-expanding worms. Shane Harris has written an absorbing account of the internet’s growing importance as not only the place where the world works, plays, and stores vital information, but the site of an ongoing covert war in which the lines between offense and defense are blurred—a war in which America does not have a clear advantage.